Not Meant To Be
by Yueres De Leo
Summary: Times passes by, and there are things he has come to realize about his teacher; Nana is the strongest woman he has ever met, she is beautiful, she is kind, she is selfless, and among a mountain of other amazing things he was certain of, she is undeniably terrible at holding her liquor. So he is grateful for Inko. Toshinori/Inko fanfic! Couldn't uploud the whole summary!
1. Chapter 1

Hello my darlings! I hope you like this little piece I work every now and then on. It is also published in AO3 under the name of my other accounta, MurasakibaraAoi! So no rights have been violated XD

Please leave a review if you like it!

Toshinori is drying his hair after stepping out of the shower, muscles sore and ready to slip into bed, ready to rest and forget for a moment that tomorrow's training will be hell dressed as a U.A homeroom teacher in a yellow costume, when his phone rings.

"Your apartment is on the third floor, right? Yes? Good, open the door, we are on the lift"

He really does not know what to make out of Gran Torino's voice, or the situation in general to be quite honest, so he stutters an answer when his brain processes the very odd question, and hears a knock on the door even before he puts the phone down. His hair is still wet and there is a towel around his neck when he scrambles down the hall, feet barely fitting inside the slips he managed to grab on his way out of the bathroom, a barely audible 'Almost there!' when there is another knock and his arm raises to unlock the door and pull it open. He has had no time to figure just what the whole thing was about, but what he finds at the other side of the door is not something he would have thought of, even if he had had hours to think about it- His homeroom teacher's bare face is something he is not used to seeing, and feels weird in so many ways given the fact that he kicked his ass in practice not half a day ago, so weird he almost winces when the man snorts and throws an instruction to his left.

"Put your hips into it, she can't be that heavy"

"By all means, you carry her then"

Toshinori blinks, look at his right, and dressed in a high school uniform he has seen around the neighborhood, is a green haired girl that cannot a) be older than him, and b) taller than a Middle School freshman. At the moment, that's all the information his brain is capable of processing, because right there besides the petite girl, with an arm holding her waist and the other one holding her arm around her own small shoulders, is his master in all of her almost unconscious glory. A Shimura Nana wearing civilian clothes was a sight usually reserved for training mile stones' celebration every now and then, maybe a trip to a convince store when it's too hot and ice cream is needed to survive, but not to be held up by a stranger at his doorstep.

There is no blood, no injuries, no torn clothes, but he panics.

"Wh-What happened? Master? Are you- Is she alright!?"

Gran Torino snorts. Toshinori gapes. The girl smiles at him.

"Oh, don't worry, she is! Only had a little too much to drink"

"Your apartment was the closest one, so we brought her here" She snorts at his teacher's explanation, securing a little more her grip on his Master's hand, and throws Gran Torino a glance over Nana's head. If she had not looked as amused, her next words would have sounded painfully bitter.

" _We,_ eh?"

"You needed to get a work out of this"

Toshinori concludes he has no idea of what role he is supposed to be playing right now, even though it is obvious he is to step aside and let them in, but it is somehow lost to him when his Master's head shifts ever so slightly, a groan leaving her lips and a frown adorning her face when she lifts it and blinks at the light coming from inside his apartment. Maybe it is the fact that he has never seen her like this, or that he knows what date it is, that she is dressed like the woman that three years ago as of today gave up on her own son for his sake, that makes him step forward and reach for her arm even when she somehow has all the support she needs on the tiny body of the girl holding her up.

The woman blinks up at him, beautiful features dazzled and eyes unfocused, and he tries to smile, because that's one of the things she has trained him to do.

"To-Toshi?"

He opens his mouth to answer.

Her face goes green.

The girl yelps.

"Step bac- Oh dear"

The last bit of her words was completely drowned by his teacher, as she leaned forward with a groan, hand flying upwards to her face but completely failing to keep in the contents of her stomach. If Toshinori had been smarter, he would have released her arm and step back as he was tried to be instructed, but as he stared and twitched at the puddle of vomit at his feet, over his shoes and on the front of his shirt, it was more than obvious that had not been the case. Nana groaned again, and seemed to sober up enough to close her mouth and actually put her hand in place before anything else could come out.

Gran Torino groans.

"Well, you ought to feel better after that"

The girl's name, he learns after throwing his shirt out, bathing again, cleaning the floors, and laying his Master on a spare futon, is Inko. A girl whose family owns the bar-restaurant his Master drinks at times like this and has drank at since it was legal of her (hence, how she knew his Master well enough to help 'the pretty lady who usually eats at the corner and orders too much tequila and lets me sit with her when she wants to talk' from time to time), a girl of his same age who studies on a High School not twenty minutes from his apartment (Hence, the only reason she was even allowed to help in the first place), and most importantly, a girl Toshinori can't, for the life of him, look eye to eye without remembering the fateful day he was puked on by his Master on his doorstep, and she was there to witness it all.

(Hence, the reason why she laughed and patted his shoulder in comfort and laughed some more when it only made him blush harder)

It was almost poetic.


	2. Chapter 2 (Edited!)

It was Saturday morning, early enough to caught on the rare sight of shops still sporting their 'closed' signs in all of their lazy seven-in-the-morning glory, no meaningful amount of cars nor loud noises evidence of the life in the city, and so far the only thing that has accompanied him on his hour and a half run from his house to Gran Torino's has been the pair of lap dogs he most certainly did _not_ run away from. The towel on his neck is dripping with sweat by the time he reaches the steps, and Toshinori does not notice it until after his hand is on the railing and he leans his weight on it, straightening up almost right away in case Gran Torino happened to glance out of the window and deemed his resistance still too low, because he was grateful for the training, but was in no mood of running ten laps around the city again.

There is a white bicycle leaning against the wall beside the short stairs to the door, an addition to the scenery that most certainly had not been there yesterday, or the day before that, or the three months he has had been training under both his Masters' and Gran Torino's guidance. But Toshinori does not think much about it, because his throat is dry and demanding water he does not have at the moment, and his towel is probably going to leave a puddle of sweat on the floor if he does not move soon enough. So he dismisses the image, reaches for the door, knowing full well it was already open, and turns the knob.

"I AM ALIVE! Ohhh, Toshinori, good morning!"

The statement (or at least the first three words of that whole sentence), said under any sort of circumstance, would be without a doubt a relief to hear, but he has absolutely no context to go by, nothing to tell him why that would not be the case, so the teenager is only left to blink as he sees Nana holds an empty tea cup in one hand, and Gran Torino groans, sitting on the other side of the small table of his living room his Master had nagged at him for months to change. There is salad served between them, and a Western breakfast on each of their plates, the type of breakfast Toshinori himself makes more often than not, his American looks somehow managing to also make his taste in food American enough for his classmates to refuse believe he was, in fact, Japanese. Gran Torino is frowning and massaging his temple with the pads of his fingers, and Toshinori knows a headache when he sees someone nursing one, so he wisely decides to not do a single thing that could make it worse, because he quite liked being alive.

The man groaned again.

"Congratulations, Shimura. Now shut up"

Nana laughs loudly, and he is three seconds away from joining her, even if it means he is walking into dangerous territory with the man who is responsible of his academic life and half of his day to day training, but Toshinori catches himself when he realizes there is a third presence on the room. A smile on thin, small smiles, and amusement dancing on dark green eyes- It has been a couple of weeks, but he remembers it clearly, as clearly as he wishes he could remember the notes for the Pre-Quirk History test he has next week. Toshinori remembers, and because he does his cheeks burn greatly and his eyes find the floor so very interesting, the wall so very interesting, her bangs so very interesting, anything and everything that is not her eyes when he returns the greeting and the half bow she ends when she sees him, and the teenager is all too aware of the fact that when he lowers his head, more than three droplets of sweat crash on the floor, and that he doesn't precisely smell of roses (And couldn't he get one normal encounter? Dressed in nice clothes, clean and in a presentable state?). If Inko notices any of it, from his awkwardness on ever growing limbs to the red beans on his face, like Gran Torino when he most obviously snorted, she, blessedly does not make any comment about it.

She continues to smile, and then she nods at the kettle she is holding in one hand, pouring whatever is inside on his Master's awaiting cup.

"Hang over tea. Always works"

Inko says it as the explanation he didn't ask for, at least not at loud- It's the explanation he had wanted nonetheless, and guesses it must have been that obvious, at least on his face. A reason for her presence, perhaps, but he is most certainly not making any actual questions at the moment, lest he makes a fool of himself again, this time by opening his mouth and saying something he will regret by not knowing how to phrase. Nana throws her head back, gulps the whole cup in a matter of seconds, and lets it down with a satisfying huff- He wonders, for a moment, if that is how she drinks alcohol. For the sake of both her liver and his wardrobe he hopes that it is not the case.

"And _thank god_ it works, Inko! Sorry to make you come all the way here, and on a Saturday nonetheless, what time is it again? Ren shouldn't have let you come, there is a limit to costume service"

The girl grins back with a wave of her hand "There probably is, but not for family friends. That is, I think, the reason my Dad lets me do any of this" She stops to think for a moment, and the grin turns sheepish in a matter of seconds, young and unconcerned, and although nice to look at, completely unapologetic "Perfect excuse to get some morning air, I could do with more frequent cycling too. So it is a win-win situation, I think"

"You are absolutely right!" And her words do not match her actions, even though her smile does- Nana throws a tomato at Gran Torino, throwing a short glare in his general direction when the words 'You could use the exercise' were muttered under his breathe. Toshinori is almost surprised by the accuracy of her throw, amused by the way the slice slides off his face painfully slowly, and completely caught off guard by Inko's low and half hidden snicker at the scene- She snicker, then she laughs, and it's clear like the sound of summer bells ringing through an empty house.

Toshinori hums a little.

"It is a nice day"

He inmediatly regrets it.

The worst part is he does not know why he regrets it. Inko focuses his attention on him, almost unblinking and still amused eyes strained on his person, and the guy has next to no idea of what he is supposed to do with any part of his body- Since One For All, he has gone through a slow but constant growth stupor, so he has yet to get used to the long limbs. She smiles at him, and he tries to at least not look like an idiot.

"That is very true!"

Gran Torino snorts.

Nana laughs.

Toshinori just wants to go bury himself on a hole.

"Give my greetings to your old man, I will probably pass by sometime next week. And call when you get home, alright Kiddo?" His master apparently decides to take pity on his socially awkward self, so she stands up, pats Inko on the head twice, and turns at Toshinori with a smile that calms his nerves and embarrassment down. He wonders sometimes if that is his Master's Quirk, because it works every single time "Come on Toshinori, close quarters training today, we don't have you blowing over buildings all over the city, do we now?"

"Just don't blow _my_ building while you are at it- Nha, Kid, before you go, do you know how to make Taiyaki?"

The teenager is two steps behind his Master and walking down the hall when he hears the laugh once more. It was clear and it was loud, not in an annoying way, and it resonated in his ears in such a manner he actually had to glance over his shoulder to confirm that no, no school girl was standing right behind him, but instead of a completely different room, probably picking up her stuff and preparing to leave.

She laughed again. He listens.

Maybe it was One For All developing his senses as well, not just his height.

Toshinori thought, as they reached the stairs to the basement, that it would probably be another couple of weeks until their paths crossed again, but even if they turned into months, he was somehow certain he was not going to forget that laugh.


End file.
